The Tigers practiced in Jordan-Hare Stadium as they continued their slow march toward next weekend's game against Alabama. Cox and Co. are enjoying this week, their only open date after playing 11 straight games.

``We're getting our legs back,'' Cox said. ``We've already started on Bama, working on some things. We put in a good bit of our game plan. We've been going out there, not going too long, but getting a lot done.''

Mark Almond, Birmingham NewsBrandon Cox: Well-deserved break

Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville also said he liked the idea of having extra time to get ready for Alabama.

``We're working on different situations, different things we might do in the game since we have so many days,'' he said. ``We don't want to do a lot of reps in some areas because guys get bored with it. We're just picking out certain things we want to work on.''

The notebook
A few thoughts about the 2008 football schedule, that was previously posted, and will shamelessly be mentioned again. One of the first comments made to the post was a good one: Auburn was smart to schedule Louisiana-Monroe as an August season-opener before packing up its new starting quarterback to play at West Virginia.

**A back-to-back run at home against LSU and Tennessee may have unexpectedly gotten tougher because Auburn plays at improving Mississippi State before taking on the Bengal Tigers and the Volunteers.

**Again, Auburn is playing five road games for the first time since 2003. For those of you who have whined about previous non-conference schedules, this is the price you're paying for scheduling West Virginia.

**Tennessee-Martin, the 10th game on the schedule, has a 3-7 record with a game left this season. Tennessee Tech, an Auburn opponent this year, beat 'em 13-10, but UTM has beaten Southeast Missouri 55-20 and Murray State 76-34 in the last two games.

Gold nugget: John Barry scored Dr. No, then 11 of the next 14 James Bond movies, including Goldfinger, where he would perfect the "Bond sound,'' a heady mixture of brass, jazz and sensuous melodies. There is even an element of Barry's jazz roots in the big-band track "Into Miami," which follows the title credits and accompanies the film's iconic image of the camera lens zooming toward the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach.